geoffbeaumont

Just back from a few days in Bavaria. Saw quite a few campers based on 4x4 Iveco vans (and one 4x4 Sprinter). Pretty much exactly what several people have advocated on this thread. All matt grey for some reason?! They looked pretty appealing to me - quite at home on metalled road where I saw them, but perfectly capable of rough tracks. Decent but not excessive size and I guess with a decent load capacity too.

Doesn't look like it has any side windows, which would make it only for the brave as a commuter in this country. Which is a shame, because it looks fantastic. It's not really what beach buggies are about though. Maybe they'll follow up with a more practical everyday car that still sticks to a no frills approach?

I suppose it depends on your criteria. If your primary aim is to shout "look at me" as loud as possible then the one in the OP is kind of hard to miss!

Seems rather better value ready made anyway. Assuming they assemble it properly square.

A few months ago I'd have agreed with this, after not needing a spare for probably 20 years. But so far this year we've had three terminally damaged tyres between our two cars (neither, admittedly, 4x4s). Neither has a spare tyre, which has meant twice continuing to drive on a dangerous tyre to get the vehicle to a suitable place to get it sorted, and having it unavailable until the tyre fitting could happen. The other occasion I had the choice between waiting for a low priority AA recovery or putting in some tyre sealant and trying to limp home very carefully - went for the latter and just made it, then again had the car off the road for days. Spare tyres are currently looking like a very good idea... Realistically this is probably the correct answer.

If you can live without much range on petrol you can replace the original fuel tank with the LPG one. You'll need to find somewhere for a small petrol tank (assuming you're running a normal dual fuel setup, which also gives you the fall back of running on petrol if you can't get LPG). My classic had a 5 gallon tank in the rear wing, but not sure if that's possible on a P38. Mine had 2x35l LPG cylinders in place of the petrol tank - so about 56l of actual capacity and about half the range it would have had, but these days you can probably fit in quite a bit more capacity with a single toroid tank.

Although any fuel savings may be offset by how much fun you can have. Especially if there's a V8 involved... See also @FridgeFreezer's post...

Lorem ipsum is traditional typesetters "holding" copy, still used in the digital world. Basically they've never actually put any final copy in the page and put their site live regardless... The copy is Latin based junk, it doesn't actually make sense (which was the original idea - it couldn't be mistaken for finished work). These days it's instantly recognised as a placeholder by anyone who works in a trade that uses it.

Doesn't have to be terribly modern for that - the ABS system on late Range Rover Classics was independent on each wheel and very effective in situations like that (which was useful, because auto RRCs pretty much always need some brakes on descents). If you had the traction control option, that only operated on the back axle, but it was independent on each wheel and surprisingly effective.

There will always be people who carry on driving on the reserve...

No argument about modern cars having unnecessary complexity, but that's actually something I've thought would be a really good idea and included in imaginary vapour trucks (yeah, I lead a sad existence...). As long as it's tied into an alert (maybe a text message) if the temperature rises above a certain level so if it fails you can get back before Fido is in danger. I reckon it'd also need an externally visible temperate display to hopefully dissuade the RSPCA from breaking in to rescue Fido from his nice air conditioned kennel!

And this is combined in some cases with no real information to allow you to work on the vehicle. Case in point, our 2015 Zafira C - no workshop manual available as far as I've been able to find out (even online, since Vauxhall and Opel were sold to PSA). Only thing I could find was Haynes online manual - that was a complete waste of money. It's got wiring diagrams, which may be correct - but given at least some of the extremely patchy location diagrams are completely wrong I wouldn't want to bet on it. There's so much information missing it's impossible to fault trace using it. Need to check the pins on the deadlock relay? Where's that then? And nothing on procedures (it's got a section for that - but it turns out to just have generic and very high level descriptions for any car. Basically useless and effectively a scam.

But not fast enough to escape a crowd of angry Argentinians...

Maybe I will be able to afford another classic someday after all...

When I had a V8 it was more about range - then again, I had an LPG conversion with only 70l of tanks. I guess it was good practice for running an electric car... 😕 Price per mile it actually worked out cheaper than running a petrol escort.

Ah, but the V8 owners obsess over every last mpg instead...

Definitely not central - but there's a case for moving around the country so everyone gets a turn at it being (relatively) down the road from them. Obviously, that only works if these meets become regular, maybe every year or so.

Being a nerd I had to look for answers to that... The answer, of course, is that it's complicated - but the Ordnance Survey put the geographical centre of the UK not far from me in the Forest of Bowland (leaving NI out doesn't move it far - just to the east near Clitheroe): https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/newsroom/blog/where-is-the-centre-of-great-britain-2 The centre by population looks to be somewhere in Leicestershire. It was calculated as Appleby Parva at the turn of the century, but will be a bit further south east now: https://web.archive.org/web/20071123015253/http://www.applebymagna.org.uk/population_centre.htm That's an archived page of a local website that's no longer available and is quoting the Daily Mail - but it's reporting serious study. From page 33 of the PDF linked on this page, if you fancy some weightier reading: https://www.dannydorling.org/?page_id=1449 So both Gaydon and Bakewell look pretty good as "fair" locations based on the idea of not to far from the centre with the right facilities. At least for our UK members - I'm assuming not many others will be tempted unless they happen to be in the UK already at the time. Maybe just one or two from mainland Europe?

Also avoids all the legal and insurance issues that come with formally organising a gathering. As far as I'm aware all previous forum meets have been informal like this.

I wonder what our geographical spread is? Ideally weighted by density* - we've definitely got members in most areas of the UK, but definitely more in some parts than others. It probably roughly follows population density, so I wonder if someone else has worked out the practical centre of the UK by travel time weighted for population density? From here in Lancashire it's roughly the same driving time to Aberdeen or Devon (neither of which are at the extremes) - I'd guess the centre without taking account of density (and including NI) would probably be somewhere like the Lake District or maybe North Yorks - but density will move it South a fair way. * I meant number of members in each area, not IQ. Shut up at the back

@Anderzander you might want to remove your address from that screenshot, unless you want every ne'er do well on the internet to know where to come looking for your tools and vehicles...

This calls for some custom seat covers! 🙂

I have an image of me standing in the living room, blazing away redneck style at noises from the ceiling... 😆

Plenty of birds (with plenty of chicks, judging by the rate they empty the feeders, though I don't know where their nests are), but as far as more invasive wildlife goes no wasp nests yet this year. I'm just at war with the rats - who are well ahead on points. They've worked out not to touch bait, seems they've now leaned to avoid traps, even when lured with suet (only thing that would get them near, and they still managed to eat it and escape more often than I caught them), and they're back in the loft. Not sure where they're getting in, I repaired the felt where they chewed through last time and blocked it up. Got a camera trap in there trying to find out... The garage smells of rats, but I think it's more then using the gully behind it as a run, no sign of them in there.

What's the realistic working life of the current battery technologies? Are they still giving decent range at that point, and if not how much does replacing the batteries affect that comparison? (Not a dig - I don't know the answers). That's true of both ICE and electric - very hard to make any worthwhile comparison when most figures bandied around seem to leave out part of the picture. If anyone knows of genuinely comprehensive figures for the impact of both technologies I'd be interested.